Sharing ideas and information on auto, home and other insurance.

Tag Archives: sales

AKA What #insurtech should be trying to solve but outside of me and maybe some people I have not found yet, is not.

Really it is two paragraphs. One that comes from a standard document that you’ll find in your policy forms. Yes, I know you likely do not read them. Also, the version in your state may be different. The other is a direct quote via an email. I see or hear variations of the second one every week. So here goes;

Reality is this; insurance companies are run by other members of our human species. They are also influenced by their surroundings both human and inanimate. They are influenced by many of the same ideals, both positive and negative as the rest of us. There is a lot of talk about “disruption,” #insurtech, #fintech, and #bigdata. The industry is “ripe” for change, blah, blah, blah.

Yes I have many of my own thoughts, heck it’s my blog so of course they are my thoughts. This dawned on me the other day;

Maybe the insurance industry is just a reflection of society. But how? In what way(s)?

Sat in on a webinar a week or so ago. The title of it intrigued me since I could not figure out why it was setting such a low expectation for a certain metric. Then I gave them an hour of my life and they basically explained why.

Some people don’t think big enough

Kind of reinforced me to not pay much attention to consultants who are paid for time not necessarily results. Anyhow, Lots of goofy ideas where talked about but two stood out;

Several times a month a new person hires me and I am shocked. See I know I am “good” and I know how to do a lot of things. But there is a recurring theme, there is really no reason why this opportunity should exist. There is no reason why this person should have called. But then again there are quite a few.

The one that set me over is something like this, husband and wife with the same agent for 20+ years. Husband and wife fit perfectly into dozens of companies; married, great credit, college degrees, home owners, clean records. He is also a business owner and the paths fairly regularly cross with the agent who should appreciate his business. Sounds familiar?

Not to far removed from election season and now with other elections and votes pending soon I cannot help but think about how amateurish campaigns can be. Reality is it is pretty sad. Everyone operates from a reactive position and goes right for the “jugular” with something like public safety. Rarely with any facts in hand. Even rarer with actually actionable steps to fix the base of the problem from the past. Instead they take the easy road, strike up some fear, attack an opponent and just like that you have some politics.

So in the iconic sales based movie Glengarry Glen Ross the scene emphasizing “Always be closing” stands out as a signature moment;

Although the scene itself(**Some language, not for everyone) is brief the message it portrays covers decades of sales attitude. Good for the rest of us that those decades are over and people much prefer to be buy then be sold.

Then of course there is this;

About all this line, made famous here **some language** Coffee in my world is for OPENING.